


Benedick Hobbes' Balthazar Jones and Pedro Donaldson Get Together Rouse of the Century OR The One Where Everybody Finds Out

by gurlsrool



Category: Lovely Little Losers, Nothing Much to Do
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-20
Updated: 2015-10-20
Packaged: 2018-04-27 05:28:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5035636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gurlsrool/pseuds/gurlsrool
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU in which Ben sets out to help his seemingly hopeless friends Balthazar and Pedro get their shit together and the rest of the gang each realizes in turn that they already have.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Benedick Hobbes' Balthazar Jones and Pedro Donaldson Get Together Rouse of the Century OR The One Where Everybody Finds Out

**Author's Note:**

> DEDICATED 2 KATIE AND NATALIE thank you sososos much for the prompt, help and motivation along the way, and for generally existing?? I love you both so much! Anyways, this takes place right after the plot of nmtd unfolds (hence Peter being referred to as Pedro) in some mysterious au time! Plz enjoy! tw for food and sex mentions and some strong language but that's it I think!

“And that’s just the first thing!” Ben slammed his hand on the countertop, making Ursula jump and Bea roll her eyes. “Because I know what you’re thinking,” he brought his voice up an octave as if impersonating someone impersonating him, “They look at each other, of course they look at each other Ben, everyone looks at each other, it’s a natural thing human beings with sight do!” 

“Who exactly are you pretending to be?” Meg raised an eyebrow from where she leaned beside Ursula in the Dukes’ kitchen, lazily running a nail file across the tops of her fingertips.

“I don’t know, all of you! You always doubt me but the thing is- the thing is, I know Balth and Pedro yeah?”

“Yes, we all know Balth and Pedro.” Bea grinned at Ben in that way where her eyes got all melty and her teeth seemed to become her entire face. Meg made a gagging notion behind Bea’s head and Ursula stifled a laugh. “How exactly do they look at each other?”

“Like, like-” Ben physically grabbed at the air for the words until Meg interrupted.

“Like you’re looking at him right now.”

“Exactly!” Ben punched the air in triumph as Bea’s face got all clouded and far off for a long moment. The two girls in the room wondered in their own way if Bea would ever stop being afraid of completely falling in love. The one boy in the room was lost in thought about the way his girlfriend sometimes tucked her hair behind her ear when she smiled up at him and the sun shined down.

“So what’s the second thing then?” Bea asked, clearing her throat, back in the present.

“Hmm? Ah, yes!” Ben came back as well. The two of them were perfect together because they always tended to get lost and come back together. “Number two is the way they act you know, they just act like a couple! They finish each other’s sentences for god’s sake! They’re even getting me a joint present for my birthday next week which is both coupley and cheap!”

“I just don’t get why they would date and not tell us,” Ursula piped up.

“Maybe they think secret relationships are hot or something! Maybe they have a fetish for secret gay relationships!”

“Why is gay part of the fetish?”

“I don’t know, because heterosexual secrets aren’t nearly as… sexy.”

Meg snorted. “I second that.” 

“What?” Ben was clearly the only surprised person in the room.

“Oh Benji,” she dropped the nail file on the counter and stalked across the room, squeezing his cheeks and shaking his head back and forth a little. “I’d tell you about all my same sex experiences but then they wouldn’t be sexy anymore now would they? I mean maybe for you they would be...” she winked and walked towards the front door, leaving Ben sputtering in her wake. “You coming Ursula? Bea?” she called over her shoulder and Ursula shrugged, absentmindedly following her out.

“I’m telling you,” Ben said, when he finally composed himself. “They’re together. Together! Balthazar Jones and Pedro Donaldson. Balthazar Donaldson. Pedro Jones. How would me being best man work anyways? Would I have double the best man duties? I don’t know if I’m ready for that responsibility.” he got lost in thought for a moment before finishing, “Ha. Duties.”

Bea followed her friends out of the house without a second thought leaving Ben in the Duke house, alone and befuddled, leaving him no choice but to shout “HEY!” at no one and take off after them.  
*  
“This mystery in particular,” Dogberry balanced the video camera carefully in his right hand, -he’d had the camera for awhile and was rather proud of himself for operating it properly. He figured Ursula would be proud too. Verges certainly would, she had seen how intently he had watched all those informational videos on his dad’s desktop computer- “seems to be the closest to unsolvable of any mystery we’ve ever taken on before.”

“Yes.” Verges nodded rapidly behind him. “The closest.”

“However, as all of our pred... pred…”

“Predecessors.”

“As all of our predecessors have shown us and the world, there is no such thing as an unsolvable mystery.”

“Except for the truth about aliens.” Verges looked down solemnly.

“Yes.” Dogberry’s face matched hers, as it often did. “Except for that. However, garden gnomes are not extraterrestrials! I think. Now the gnomes were stolen from this very lawn,” Dogberry gestured emphatically to the stretch of green behind him. “Usually I would describe this house as the house with the garden gnomes but unfortunately… they’ve all been stolen.”

“It’s a good thing we’re here then, right Dogberry?”

“Hmm? Oh yes, yes. Good thing indeed. So we have made posters and put them up around the neighborhood, you can see one…” he wandered over to the mailbox at the front of the driveway. “right here!” he pointed proudly at the slightly crumpled white paper. “You see we wrote a very strongly worded letter to the gnome captor that we wouldn’t be upset with them and press charges if they quietly returned the gnomes by dinnertime because Verges’s mum is making lasagna for dinner.”

“She makes great lasagna. It’s vegetarian.”

“Yes! So we have to be back by six but until then we will be here, waiting! Well, until five forty five really, because we’re walking home.”

“Yes but um we specified on the poster that the gnome captors should arrive by five thirty so that gives them fifteen minutes to be late.”

“Just fifteen though we’re not waiting around all night! I mean, we would, for the sake of the mystery, but that’s not fair to Verges’s mum.”

“No, she doesn’t like it when the lasagna gets cold.”

They sat in silence for a few hours with the camera propped up on the driveway, facing the road. Admittedly, Dogberry was getting rather bored and hungry. As much as he loved a good stakeout, he was really looking forward to dinner. At five twenty, he even toyed with the idea of calling it early although that would completely and utterly go against the rules of detective work. Just as he was shaking himself out of the idea, a car pulled up across the street.

Dogberry jumped up and shook Verges, who had fallen asleep against the door of the random woman’s garage (they hadn’t exactly talked to her about the mystery but often biked by and noticed the collection of odd gnomes until one day they disappeared. The day they noticed, Dogberry crashed his bike into a trashcan. The bell on his bicycle had never fully recovered). “Verges!” he hissed.

“Hmm? What?” she stirred awake. “Is it lasagna time?”

“Nearly but look! People!” he pointed excitedly across the street to the car. “As you can see, at nearly five thirty, at,” he studied his watch carefully, “at five twenty-six PM people have arrived! Are these the gnome culprits?”

Both of the front doors of the car swung open and some of Ursula’s friends emerged, one of them dragging along a rather large teddy bear. “Balthazar and Pedro!” Verges exclaimed. “I can’t believe-”

The two stood on the edge of the driveway, talking with their heads close together. “What are they talking about?”  
“Maybe they’re discussing whether or not they should really return the gnomes. I bet they’re worth a lot of money.” Dogberry shook his head in disapproval. 

“And they make rather cute lawn decorations.”

“That too. Come on, let’s get closer so we can hear what they’re saying.” he and Verges stood up and walked carefully to the edge of the driveway, camera in hand. “This is true detective work.” Dogberry whispered to Verges.  
“I still can’t hear.” she complained, as they hid behind a tree on the woman’s front yard. “We should make a run for those roses,” she pointed to bushes right behind Pedro’s feet.  
“Hmm…” Dogberry considered the two men as they talked. They were smiling rather large smiles he hadn’t quite seen on their faces before. The quick thrill of law breaking, he shook his head disappointedly. Such a shame. The two boys stopped laughing suddenly and began to move their heads closer together. Perhaps they had felt Dogberry and Verges’s eyes and knew they needed to whisper. Instead, however, they didn’t talk at all as Pedro pressed his lips slowly to Balthazar’s. Verges’s eyes widened in surprise but Dogberry hid his own befuddlement. A true detective knew everything that was coming. “Of course.” he said out loud. “A modern Bonnie and Clyde.” he seized the moment that their eyes were closed and ran across the street, making a leap for the rose bush, Verges hot on his heels.

“OW!” Verges exclaimed as she dove in beside him. 

The two boys quickly separated, jumping a foot apart, turning to face Dogberry and Verges. “What the hell?” Pedro screamed, narrowing his eyes at them. “Who the fuck are you?”

“They’re Ursula’s year tens, I think.” Balthazar muttered. “You know there are uh thorns in that bush.”

“What are you doing?” Pedro demanded.

“Give us the gnomes!” Dogberry lept out of the bush. “We know you have them in that bear of yours!” he pointed at Balthazar’s hand accusingly. “Verges seize the bear!”

“Right!” Verges clamored clumsily out of the roses and promptly fell on the pavement, grabbing for the teddy bear as she collapsed. Her hands missed by a few feet and she promptly stood up, making a run for the bear.

“Hey! Give that back!” Pedro demanded and snatched the teddy bear from Verges’s grip with admittedly not much trouble. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know!” Dogberry exclaimed. He really had thought they were decent, despite Pedro’s brother recently falling into a life of crime. This was getting to be simply revolting, he almost felt too sick for homemade lasagna! Almost. He and Verges had eaten an early lunch so they could make the stakeout longer and it was starting to get to him.

“Know what?” Pedro laughed. “Look we’ve been at the fair all day.” he shook the teddy bear at them as if emphasizing his point. “We didn’t steal your gnomes or whatever.”

“Wait do you mean Mrs. Macdonald’s gnomes? The woman across the street?” Balthazar interrupted.

“Uh, yes.” Dogberry nodded confidently. “They’ve been stolen, see.” he pointed to a poster with a messy crayon drawing of a gnome and boldfaced text taped to what he now assumed was the Jones’ mailbox.

“Actually, Mrs. Macdonald just puts them away when a storm’s meant to come through, like there was last night. They’re probably in her shed.” Balthazar gestured to the green shed in the woman’s side yard.

“Oh. Um…” Verges grabbed Dogberry’s wrist. “Well we have to be off. Mum’s making lasagna!”

“Should we worry about them telling everyone?” Dogberry heard Pedro ask, as they shuffled away.

“Nah, they’re harmless. Mr. Fluffykins on the other hand is lethal, I’m not sure if I want him in my house. Maybe you should take custody this week.”

“You know I really resent that name.”

“It’s a great name!”

The rest of their conversation was muffled out as Dogberry and Verges made their way across the street and carefully opened up the shed door to find a collection of colorful gnomes staring back at them. 

He zoomed in on each of them in turn before flipping the camera around to face himself. “Well. The unsolvable… is solved.”  
*  
“I think,” Ben said, around a mouthful of pepperoni pizza. “you might be right.” the three girls at the table blinked at him in surprise. The words sounded odd coming from Ben’s mouth. He himself readjusted his jaw after the sentence, although that could have just been because he had dislocated it slightly from taking such a large bite of pizza.

“What was that Ben?” Meg asked, now grinning wildly. “I couldn’t quite hear you, you had a little something in your mouth.”

“Yeah and half of it is still left,” Bea rolled her eyes, reaching a napkin up and wiping sauce from the edge of her boyfriend’s lips, wearing a mixed expression of you’re hopeless and I can’t believe I’m dating you and something else she seemed to be holding back.

Ben smiled fondly at her before turning to the dark haired girl beside her. “I said, Margaret, Megara, Megamart, that I think you might be right.”

“Yes, I heard you the first time I just couldn’t believe it.”

“Now come on I’m not a slytherin like the two of you. I can actually admit when I’m wrong.” 

“Hey!” Bea exclaimed, her hands now awkwardly fiddling with her plate. 

“Anyways, I had a lot of time to think, when I was walking here. You know, since my girlfriend drove off without me.” Ben’s expression held some mix of I cannot believe you Beatrice and actually I can and I would climb up a volcano in flip flops and a parka if it meant getting to you.

“Well no one invited you really.” half of Meg’s hair was pulled into a bun on top of her hair and the other half fell down her shoulders lazily, where she was running her fingers through it with one hand and picking sausage off of her pizza with the other. Meg had a sort of effortlessly beautiful look about her at all times that was so casually perfect that Ben had no idea if she spent five minutes or five hours getting ready in the morning. Really, the getting ready process of all the girls was a mystery to him. Except for Bea’s, of course, because he texted her through the whole process, counting down the minutes until it was over and she was with him in person. He was beginning to think Claudio was right, when he said that Ben had more sap in him than whatever tree it was that produced sap. He was also beginning to think he didn’t care much.

“Says the girl who called me cackling from the car screaming that she was taking my girlfriend on a pizza date without me!”

“To be fair,” Ursula interrupted, “I’m pretty sure the emphasis was supposed to be on without you.”

“That’s ridiculous! Why would she tell me the exact location of where she was going if she didn’t want me to come?” Ben exclaimed, moving to slam his hand on the table but severely miscalculating and instead landing a palm in a slice of pineapple pizza. “Oh!”

Bea covered her face with her wrist in a hopeless attempt to cover up her hysterical laughter and the something else that was finally shining through.

There was an outburst of laughter from the whole table as Ben attempted to grab napkins but Meg held them just out of his reach. When the moment finally ended, and he was (mostly) free of sauce, cheese, and unnecessary pineapple he gauged the subject again. “Anyways, I think you’re right.”

“Can you say that one more time?” Meg asked, holding her phone up. “I want to make it my ringtone.”

“Balth and Pedro aren’t together,” Ben continued, ignoring her. “Yet!”

“Oh no,” Ursula muttered.

“Oh yes! Look here’s the way I see it.” he searched around the table for something to execute his point before settling on Meg’s napkin full of picked off sausage pieces. “You see, two in five high school couples stay together until marriage yeah?”

“Literally where did you get that statistic?” Bea laughed incredulously.

“So two in five yeah?” he pushed his uneaten crust forward and Bea grabbed it and took a bite as he spread out five pieces of sausage in front of him. “So you immediately throw out Meg and Robbie.”

“Hey!”

“And Hero and Claudio, let’s be real here. Then you get rid of Meg and her next boyfriend… or girlfriend or whatever.”

“Or whatever,” Meg mimicked.

“And you only have two sausages left and one of them is Balthazar Jones and Pedro Donaldson!”

Bea stared down at the two pieces of meat suspiciously. “Who’s the other one?”

“Huh? Oh. Uh.” Ben grabbed the piece of sausage Bea was eyeing and tossed it into his mouth. “The point is! Balth and Pedro are a forever thing yeah? But they can’t be together forever if they’re never together to begin with!” 

Bea shook her head. “I just don’t see what you want to do about it Ben. Just leave it be, they’ll sort it out if they need to. And you really shouldn’t eat off of the table, that’s so unsanitary.”

“Look, they’re my best friends, I just want them to be happy okay? And they did the same for us! We should repay them! Or get revenge I’m still not really sure where I stand on all of this. But whatever, I don’t need your help! It doesn’t have to be love gods, oh no! This is love GOD and this is WAR!”

With that, he stormed out, leaving only remnants of sausage behind.

“He didn’t pay for his slice,” Ursula muttered just as Meg turned to Bea with a grin and said “You choose to date that?”

He ignored their words as he made his dramatic exit. Benedick Hobbes didn’t care about anything they thought or said. Balthazar and Pedro were in love and he was going to make them realize it no matter what it took.  
*  
“CAN YOU TURN THAT SHIT DOWN?” John pounded his fist against Pedro’s door, eyes dark. “Honest to God I’m going to break this door in HALF if you don’t TURN. THAT. SHIT. DOWN.”

It was almost midnight and Pedro was blasting some fucking acoustic bullshit, of all things to blast when John was trying to sleep. Although he conveyed the persona of a young man who stayed up until four AM scheming and writing goth poetry, John actually went to sleep at a reasonable hour. He liked to be well rested and up to see the sunrise over Auckland. It was the only time he ever felt serene.

Now however, John felt as if he would never understand the definition of calm again. He tried one more minute of pounding before finally, he rendered his efforts hopeless and stormed downstairs, flying back up a moment later with a key in hand. Their mum kept all of the room keys in a drawer beneath the blender. John had gotten mad one year, said there was no point for locks if there was easy access to the keys, but now, he was thankful for it.

“Peter Donaldson,” John spat through his teeth as he placed the lock in the keyhole, “You are the most selfish, unaware, rude- oh.”

When the door flew open, John was immediately greeted by the sight of his brother pressed up against Balthazar Jones in the center of his bed. Their shirts and pants were thrown on Pedro’s bedroom floor where he immediately dropped his eyes to, their lips were locked together as if they had never been apart, and their hands were in places John desperately tried not to make a mental note of. He found a small grain of solace in the fact that their boxers weren’t among the pile of articles of clothing.

“Shit.”

The two boys, lost in each other and their moment and the fucking shitty folk music didn’t notice John until he muttered the word and suddenly they were flying apart, Pedro toppling over onto the carpet and Balthazar curling up into a ball on the bed. Pedro scrambled for his pants while Balthazar brought his hand up to his face, which was turning a shade scarily close to Heinz ketchup.

“Uh, what do you want John?” Pedro asked, clumsily pulling his pants on and standing up.

“Do mum and dad know he’s over?”

“I- what?”

“Mum and dad? Do they know what you’re doing up here?”

“No John I didn’t exactly walk in and say ‘Hi dad, remember Balthazar Jones? We’re gonna go up to my room and…’” he let the sentence hang there and stole a quick glance of Balthazar whose face was becoming somehow even redder. “Shit.”

“I won’t tell them. I just think it’s a bit unfair, you know? I have girls in my room and they assume something’s going on. You can get away with a lot more you know.”

“I... uh… ha.”

John smirked. He was rather fond of rendering his perfect brother speechless. “Turn the music down. That’s why I came in. I’m trying to sleep, you know.”

“Oh yeah, um of course. I- John.”

“Yes?” John asked, casually rocking back and forth on his heels, as if there wasn’t a nearly naked boy in his brother’s bed.

“I-” Pedro dragged him quickly by the wrist into the hallway, his gaze flicking quickly to their parents’ room. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, you know about me and Balth? It’s just um, it’s new and great and I’m not quite used to being out yet and, and I don’t know, we’re sort of in our own little world right now see and telling people could just…”

“Make your little world get sucked into a black hole and removed from existence?” 

“Exactly, yes! And I really like him, you know.” Pedro ran a hand through his hair, eyes shifting from John’s face to the carpet. “Like,” his voice dropped as if he was afraid Balthazar or their parents would hear. Perhaps he was afraid of hearing himself. “I really, really like him.”

“I can tell,” John grinned. “I mean, you’re in there fucking him to Mumford & Sons.”

“Hey!” Pedro hit him playfully on the shoulder. 

“You know you didn’t really have to tell me anything. It was kind of obvious.”

“Really? Oh yeah I… shit.”

“Don’t worry about it, your friends are too stupid to notice,” Pedro snorted in response and John made a move to return to his bedroom but hesitated, just before opening the door. “Uh, can I say one more thing Pedro?”

“Anything,” he said and John could tell he meant it.

“For the record I just um… I don’t think you’d be sucked into a black hole, if you told people. I think you two will be alright.” Pedro didn’t say anything to this because he didn’t need to. They were always better at communicating with silent brain waves than with words.

As he walked past Pedro’s room to return the key to the drawer downstairs, he heard the two boys talking in hushed tones.

“Are things okay with you two?”

“Yeah. I’d say so.”

“Good I’m glad I uh-”

“You’ve died of embarrassment haven’t you?”

“Yeah, kind of.”

“It’s alright. I’ll throw you a good funeral. Now where were we…”

The rest was drowned out by the sound of soft folk music. John rolled his eyes as he jogged downstairs. He couldn’t believe his brother was dating Balthazar Jones, the quiet boy who wore blazers like they were a uniform and hid behind his ukulele and always smelled faintly of notebook paper and coffee. Actually, thinking about it, he could.  
*  
“I was wrong,” Ben admitted, for the second time that day, this time into his cell phone as he groaned into the back of his hand. “I need you Beatrice. I can’t think of a good enough plan to get Balth and Pedro together!” he crumpled up the piece of paper he was jotting down ideas onto, tossing it towards his trashcan and missing by a good foot. 

“Here’s a good one!” he could already tell she was about to say something sarcastic even though he couldn’t see her face. “Why don’t you just let the universe work it out for them!”

“Don’t be daft Beatrice,” he turned to a new page of his notebook and began jotting down new ideas. “The universe doesn’t know anything about anybody. For all we know, the universe is homophobic and only makes things work out for straight couples.”

“Yes because no gay couple has ever found happiness.”

“Exactly.”

“Hero’s mums are living a lie.”

“A sham.”

“A rouse.”

“A rouse?” Ben repeated to himself, laughing for a moment just before everything became clear. “That’s it! I know what I’m going to do!”

“Oh god no Ben, seriously. Leave it be.”

“I can’t hear you over the sound of the wheels in my head turning!”

“I can’t hear you over the sound of me hanging up and going to bed!”

She did and Ben replaced her voice with the calming sound of an album of bird calls Meg had gotten him for Christmas. To the chirping of a Canadian goose, he wrote the words: Benedick Hobbes’ Balthazar Jones and Pedro Donaldson Get Together Rouse of the Century. That was just the beginning.  
*  
“I just don’t see why this is necessary!” Pedro called over the sound machine Meg had positioned in the stomach of a stuffed duck. She was currently testing it out and it wasn’t working exactly to her liking.

Meg shook the duck in her hands until it stopped screaming. “Oh sweet, innocent Peter,” she grinned wickedly at him. “We don’t do things because they’re necessary now do we? We don’t watch movies or have sex because it’s necessary.”

“Actually I’d say sex is pretty necessary,” he contorted his face into a thing of pure judgement, straightening out the bloody baby doll attached to a string. 

He was starting to wonder why he’d agree to this in the first place when he could be playing football or watching Balthazar write music or doing literally anything else when Meg interrupted with a raised eyebrow and a wicked grin “not for everyone.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Pedro got suddenly very, very still. He swore he could feel his blood freeze under his skin.

“Oh nothing,” she nonchalantly fluffed up the wings of the duck. “the problem is,” she said after a moment, “that he has to squeeze the duck. What if he just pats it on the head? I mean I know he’ll do something with it, he can’t resist a good bird-”

“Look I don’t know if Balthazar told you for some reason or if Ursula’s stupid year tens did but please just don’t go around talking about it okay? We’ll tell people when we’re ready, soon even, really soon. Sometime after Ben’s party yeah? So just-”

“Whoa, whoa, Pedro, Peter, buddy. Relax yeah?” she abandoned the duck and moved to stand directly across from him. “What are you going on about?”

“Me and Balthazar you…” he stared up at her and she smiled genuinely, not in the mocking way that she often did. “you said...”

“I was referring to my sex life babe. Not yours. Although I’m glad to hear you idiots finally got your shit together.” she patted him on the shoulder before turning back to the fake crime scene on the floor. “do you think this blood is too fake?”

“I- what? Your… you mean…. what?”

Meg turned back to face him, heaving a big sigh. Boys were so clueless, she thought to herself with an internal cluck of disapproval. “You and I have more in common than you think Pedro dear.”

“Oh I… nice. Yeah. Good then. I’m not um… I’m not gay you know.”

“I’m not either.”

“Right. Good. Uh. Balth is.”

“I know.”

“But I’m, and you’re…”

“Pedro. Relax. Do that thing with your lungs where you inhale and exhale. I know your tiny boy brain has trouble processing things so just focus on what’s simple in life. Stuffed ducks and fake dead babies and pranking Benedick Hobbes.”

She took one last glance at his face and saw that his look of bemusement had been replaced with one of relief. His shoulders visibly sagged and the lines in his forehead seemed to automatically be filled in. She rolled her eyes but if she was being honest, which she often wasn’t, she had held that same expression a few weeks before in the doorway of Bea’s bedroom when, on the way out, she mentioned that she might be as fond of Emma Watson as she was of Daniel Radcliffe and Bea had said she might have already known. She also told her to just be safe no matter what although she didn’t clarify what part of Meg needed to be “protected.” Meg had a feeling there was more than one right answer.

“Now,” she cleared her throat. “The blood.”  
*  
Ben noticed the duck almost immediately. He had trained his eyes to take note of only the important things on the landscape of any room he entered: food, birds, and Beatrice Duke. This bird in particular was a large, surprisingly lifelike duck, resting casually on his bookshelf. He squeezed it to see if it would quack and was instead bombarded by the sound of screaming.

“Oh my god!” he flew back, just as something swung down and hit him in the face. “What the-” he looked down at the baby he had caught in his hands, filled with sheer terror before he realized it was fake. That was when Meg jumped out of his closet.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” he shrieked, dropping the baby onto the carpet but immediately regretting it. “That better come out,” he gestured to the (fake, he hoped) blood surrounding the baby and his feet. “Also why the fuck-”

Meg was currently in a fit of giggles on his carpet, slamming his bedside table and sputtering out, “You- you just- you- oh my god Ben that was good that was too good! It wasn’t-” she let out a long cackle “it wasn’t supposed to hit you in the face that was better than I imagined!”

“What the hell was all that?”

Meg shrugged, bringing herself to a standing position and then thinking better of it, dropping to his bed. “You’ve been annoying lately, with all this Balth and Pedro plotting. And Bea’s been busy with you and Hero’s been busy with Claudio and Ursula’s working on some big film right now. I just…”

“You’ve been lonely.” Ben finished.

“Oh fuck off,” Meg laid back in his bed, throwing an arm of her black and white flannel over her eyes. “Now that that’s over,” she said, as he laid down beside her, “I’m just bored.”

“You could help me with my scheming!” he grinned devilishly.

“Oh yeah?” she grinned back. “I don’t know about that Benedick, sounds dangerous. Meddling is risky business you know.”

“Ugh you sound like Beatrice! You two don’t let me have any fun!”

“Hey, come on, I didn’t say I didn’t want to help!”

“Okay, so here’s the plan,” he jumped up and dove into the swivel chair by his desk, grabbing the planning notebook he had scrawled “B+P” on the front cover of. He turned around dramatically in his desk. “Phase one: The Helicopter Swoop.”

“I regret this decision already.”  
*  
“It’s just about friends,” Ursula didn’t have to look at Balthazar to know he was trying to take all of this in as much as he could. This helped since she currently couldn’t look at him, as she fiddled with the zoom on her camera. “best friends. You know. Bea and Meg. Ben and Claudio. You and Pedro.”

“I just um… we’re all kind of best friends with each other? I just feel kind of weird just talking about… him.”

“Well the viewer doesn’t know how we are as a group. This makes things simpler. Just relax alright? It’s not a big deal,” she sat down behind the camera, looking him up and down carefully. “it’s just a student film.”

“Right, yeah, of course.” Balthazar nodded. “So um do I just talk or-”

“I could ask you questions.”

“Yeah uh. That’d be good.”

“Okay. Great. So. Why don’t you just tell me about your relationship.”

“Our… oh yeah. Right. Um well we met awhile back, you know. I was twelve I think? Maybe eleven. And we just clicked, all of us did. But Pedro specifically right? Well I don’t know, he’s just always been there I guess? I don’t mean that like supportive, he is though! I just mean… it’s hard to explain. It’s just like his presence is always there. Like he’s… around.”

“I’m not sure I know what you mean,” Ursula admitted. 

“It just sort of feels like…” he paused and Ursula could tell he was thinking hard, trying to formulate the thoughts in his head. She felt surprisingly flattered by how seriously he was taking this. “It feels like, if the world ended tomorrow, everything would be gone yeah? The sun wouldn’t come back up and the sea would dry up and everybody would be burned up or buried or… abducted I don’t know. But he’d still be there.” he smiled, warily, shyly. 

Ursula watched him, watched the way his face got so soft when he talked about him. She watched the way his hands swung by his side, as if he wasn’t quite sure what to do with them. She watched the way his eyes seemed to melt and his lip curved inward and upward. She didn’t know much about love but she had studied faces like his in films over and over again. It wasn’t just one of adoration, it was one of certainty.

Oh no, Ursula mused to herself, Ben is really wasting his time.

“I’m sorry, that was a bad answer wasn’t it?” he let out a laugh.

“No, you’re fine, really.”

“I’m better at expressing myself through song you know?”

“Maybe next time you can take your ukulele out.”

“I’d like that.”  
*  
Phase One: The Helicopter Swoop ended up being more involved than Ben had expected. He had planned on constructing it at his birthday party but when he had managed to convince Pedro to help him make food for it the day before, he decided it was a good time for the Swoop and had to throw together the plan hastily.

“I don’t see why Hero’s not just making everything,” Pedro commented, squinting at a cookbook. “I don’t think either of us are very equipped for this kind of thing.” he placed the book on the counter and began rifling through an overstuffed drawer of the Hobbes’ kitchen that was stuffed with kitchen supplies more often used for a killer pots and pans band performance than actual cooking. Ben and his dad were a pretty big hit with a wooden spoon in one hand and a spatula in the other, if he did say so himself.

“She’s doing all the baking with Bea and Balth,” he dismissed with a wave of his hand. “You know her, she’s all cookies and cake and cupcakes with flowers and sprinkles and glitter and rainbows and french toast.”

“French toast?” Pedro emerged with a rusted whisk.

“She made some for me and Bea Sunday morning. It was divine really.”

“Oh so you’re staying the night with Bea then?” he raised an eyebrow, a smirk taking over his face. Ben felt his ears turning red and this made Pedro begin to laugh, a sound that, directed at him was all too familiar and felt oddly like home. Over the years, Ben had collected an odd array of fragments of his friends that resonated with a feeling of family: the strum of Balthazar’s ukulele, the smell of Claudio’s sweat after a football game, the Doctor Who theme song hummed by Hero absentmindedly, Bea screaming at him about nothing, and Pedro’s laugh. Together they made up a beautiful scrapbook he could never physically assemble although he was very happy that he couldn’t. A selfish part of him liked that it was his and his alone.

“That,” he pointed a large spoon rather violently in Pedro’s direction, “is not something good boys share. You, however, are not a good boy.”

“Sorry?” 

“Oh shit, I didn’t- that came out wrong.”

“Yup.”

“I just meant… what have you been up to lately? Seeing anyone… savory?”

“Savory?” 

“Yeah I just mean… now that you’re bi you have a lot of options.”

“Now that I’m bi?” Pedro’s grip tightened around the whisk. Ben’s heart started to pound. This definitely wasn’t part of Phase One: The Helicopter Scoop.

“Oh… I no shit. Sorry I just… look forget I said anything,” Ben insisted, eyes widened. Pedro shook his head absentmindedly in response, clearly pretending to shrug it off. “I was just wondering if you were you know, seeing someone?”  
“What?” the whisk fell to the counter with the clatter. “I no… no one why? What have you heard?”

“What? Nothing,” Ben narrowed his eyes on Pedro. “Should I have heard something?” This definitely wasn’t part of Phase One: The Helicopter Swoop. He had just intended to subtly gauge the subject of dating and the very coincidental fact that he and Balthazar Jones were the most eligible bachelors in all of Auckland, possibly in all of New Zealand. He hadn’t counted on Pedro already being with someone else.

“No. Of course not.” Pedro shook his head rapidly. “Let’s uh. Let’s make these devilled eggs yeah?”

“Uh yeah… let’s.”

Pedro refused to look Ben in the eyes for the rest of the day but he barely noticed. He was far too busy formulating Benedick Hobbes’ Balthazar Jones and Pedro Donaldson Get Together Rouse of the Century Plan B.  
*  
“I don’t see why we couldn’t just buy a cake,” Bea sat on the counter beside Balthazar, swinging her legs back and forth. “This whole baking thing is so much work.”

Hero looked up from the cookie batter she was stirring carefully, tongue peeking out of her mouth as she concentrated. “Well you’re not exactly working Beatrice,” she said lightly before stopping suddenly, eyes wide, “oh no, I didn’t mean it like-”

Bea threw her head back and laughed devilishly. “It’s too late Hero. You really hurt my feelings.”

“No I didn’t mean it like that! I’m sorry Bea I didn’t- I just meant that-”

“It’s all good Hero,” Balth spoke up, running a hand through his hair. “We know what you meant don’t we Bea?” 

“You’re no fun,” Bea sighed, jumping off the counter and picking up the bowl Hero had placed down in her moment of shock and shame. She pulled out the whisk and licked off the batter. “Yum,” she hummed.

“Hey!” Hero whacked her hand lightly. “I was using that!”

“Yeah? You want it back?”

Bea began to chase Hero around the kitchen, whisk in hand while Balthazar sat back, a small grin on his face. He liked little moments like this, just sitting back and watching. Balthazar had always enjoyed living his life on the edge of things, quiet but content. He was still getting used to the way Pedro made him the center of everything.

“What have you been up to lately Balth?” Bea asked when the chase had ended. She leaned on the countertop across from him, face flushed from running in circles. She absentmindedly pushed a piece of her hair back and Balthazar grinned, suddenly struck by how pretty she was. “I feel like I’ve been seeing less and less of you.”

“Oh, yeah,” Balthazar cast his gaze to the floor. “I’ve been uh… busy, you know. Music.”

“Music,” Bea echoed, eyeing him suspiciously. “Right. Of course. You know it’s odd, I haven’t seen much of Pedro lately either. Isn’t that odd?”

“Oh uh…” Balthazar rubbed the back of his neck, “I don’t...know.

“Balthazar.”

“...Beatrice.”

“Bea,” Hero spoke up then. “Come on start frosting the cake will you, I think it’s chilled enough.”

Bea sighed and picked up a knife, beginning to messily spread buttercream frosting over the pristine chocolate cake Hero had baked an hour before. She eyed Balth over the cake in a way that she could tell was making him nervous. He and Pedro were just so different, she thought, although they were different in one of those ways that made them work perfectly together. They could work things out without Ben’s help, she thought to herself. Although maybe she could give them just a small, tiny push in the right direction.

When she finally turned away and narrowed her eyes on the cake and her messy frosting job, a beep emerged from Balthazar’s pocket. She faced him again as he pulled out his cell phone, letting out a small chuckle as he looked at the screen.

“And who’s that?” Bea grinned.

“Just a friend,” Balthazar shrugged, quietly pushing the phone behind him on the counter.

“A boy...friend?” Bea grinned and lunged for the phone, before Balthazar could even think to return it safely to his pocket. Three texts from Pedro Donaldson. Balthazar had placed the moon emoji beside his name, or perhaps Pedro had. She scanned the screen and Balthazar didn’t bother to stop her.

honestly babe it’s not a problem

oh shit

is it weird that i called you babe that was weird wasn’t it

fuck

Bea stopped reading then and looked at Balthazar, who had his head bent over shyly.

“You shouldn’t do things like that Beatrice,” Hero scolded lightly, plucking the phone from Bea and placing it in Balthazar’s hand, patting him on the hand as she did. “Well Bea?”

“What?”

“Tell him you’re sorry.”

“Oh. I’m sorry Balthazar…” Bea said, “Meg says I have a tendency to take things too far.”

“That’s alright. Just a side effect of spending too much time with Ben yeah?” he grinned, typing out a text presumably to Pedro, before pushing his phone back into his pocket. 

“Ha. So uh… is this forreal or…?”

“Yeah. Um. As real as they come.” 

“What?” Hero asked, looking between the two. “Is everything alright?”

“Since when? Why didn’t he tell me?”Bea felt an odd, cold feeling spread throughout her. She and Pedro didn’t tell each other everything, really, but they didn’t not tell each other things often.

“Pedro and I are dating,” he said to Hero quietly, before turning to Bea, “We just didn’t want to make a whole thing of it you know? Nothing personal, just didn’t want it to be a big deal in case it wasn’t a big deal, we didn’t want to cause tension in the group or anything. I’m sorry though.”

He looked genuinely ashamed then and whatever Bea was feeling before was replaced with a sense of urgency to comfort him. She jumped up on the countertop beside him as he pulled Hero up so she could sit on the other side of him.

“I’m happy for you,” she said then, wrapping her arms around him.

His cheeks turned pink as Hero did the same. “Yeah me too!” Hero piped up. “Really, the two of you make sense.”

“Yeah,” Bea agreed. “Pedro Donaldson and Balthazar Jones. Partners in crime. Partners in life.” Before Balthazar could respond, Bea remembered Ben and all his early mornings and late nights plotting. She began to laugh hysterically, burrowing her face in Balthazar’s shoulder to muffle the sound.

“Everything alright there?” Balthazar asked, grinning down at her.

“Oh yes, completely fine,” she brought her head up and wiped a tear from her eyes, a grin still splitting across her face. My boyfriend, she thought to herself happily, is such a wonderful idiot.  
*  
“Surprise!” Bea jumped up from behind the sofa, Balthazar and Hero half-heartedly echoing her. The rest of the party, currently only a handful of people, stood in the living room, unimpressed.

“You really can’t throw yourself a surprise party Benedick,” Meg rolled her eyes. “It defeats the whole purpose,” she was sitting on the couch like she owned it, head resting against Ursula’s shoulder and legs sprawled over Pedro’s lap. 

Ben stopped mocking shock in order to roll his eyes in her direction. “Well, if only I had good enough friends to throw one for me…”

“Well you didn’t really give us a chance,” Hero mused from the kitchen, where she was aligning all of the baked goods she had made on the countertop. “You know you sent out the invites to your surprise party weeks ago.”

“You hear that Hobbes?” Meg grinned, “Even Hero Duke is against you? How’s that feel? Light, dark, uniting over one common enemy-”

“Hey!” Bea pressed a button on her phone and music began to swell through the house. “This is Ben’s party. You can be as mean as you want at your party but until then! We’re happy? Right? We’re happy!”

“Yeah sure whatever,” Ben sunk down onto the couch beside her, draping his legs over her.

The party spun on around him as more guests, people from the football team and third cousins, filed in. It was a good party, really. The eggs he and Pedro had made were utter shit but were salvaged by the mass amount of sweets Hero had spent all of the previous day making.

Ben made his way through the crowd, thanked people for coming. They played bird jeopardy, courtesy of Bea. He opened his presents, most of which were bird related, gift cards, or something to do with Doctor Who or Lord of the Rings. Ursula gave him a fancy camcorder. Her year tens gave him some mystery novel. Meg gave him a t-shirt with a flamingo on it and a stuffed duck with a wink. Pedro and Balthazar gave him a Hufflepuff pillow Balthazar’s younger brother had made. Bea gave him an impressive book of Shakespeare love quotes that made the crowd coo before they ate cake and filtered out, leaving only Benedick’s very best friends and a bowl of uneaten devilled eggs. 

“Good party yeah?” Bea muttered, sinking into Ben’s lap, where he was sitting, sifting through the book of quotes.

“Hmm? Yeah,” he replied and then snorted. “Have you read this shit?”

“Not really,” Bea hummed absentmindedly, climbing out of his lap and beginning to braid Hero’s hair. “Why?”

“There is no evil angel but Love,” Ben mused, “Damn right.”

Bea stopped braiding to face Ben and Hero frowned in protest. “Is everything alright Benedick?”

“What? Oh of course, yeah. It was a good party and this present,” he waved the book in the air, “great. Do you ever feel like,” he raised his voice, addressing the whole party, “soulmates are just a ridiculous concept? Like people always fall in with the wrong people no matter what don’t they? We’re supposed to have these people that make the world turn in the proper direction but instead it’s always just going counterclockwise or...whatever the improper way is.”

“What are you trying to say Benedick?” Bea asked and although she looked angry, she sounded sad. Pitiful even. She looked down through her eyelashes, hands that were previously occupied braiding Hero’s hair tangled in her lap. “And why are you saying it now?”

“What?” he jumped up suddenly, and although it was so many feet above him felt as if he hit his head against the ceiling on the way up. “No, no, I didn’t mean us. No. Not you, no.”

“Really, because that’s what it sounded like you meant,” Meg hummed.

“Stay out of this,” Bea hissed, quickly shifting her gaze between Meg and Benedick and the rest of the party, watching expectantly, “Although-”

“No no no no no Beatrice no I meant someone else I swear.”

“Right. Like your soulmate is someone else and for some reason you’re-”

“No. Beatrice I love you, seriously and completely I am in love with you I swear, I was just talking about Pedro and-”

“What?” Pedro narrowed his eyes at this, face growing red. “Is this about me being bi? Look Ben, if you’re worried about me falling in with the wrong person you can just… keep it to yourself honestly, okay whether I-”

“No!” Ben rubbed a hand on his forehead, “Oh god none of this is coming out right is it?”

Beatrice had a look on her face that showed she at least wanted to say no, it wasn’t, but instead all she could ask was, “You’re in love with me?” and all that fear she had a moment before was still there but there was an added sense of hope and beauty to it that Ben wanted to stare at forever, and would have if he wasn’t interrupted by-

“That is so irrelevant right now, what the hell Ben?”

“No, Pedro, Peter, listen. I wasn’t. No. Look. I just meant. You’re dating someone right now and maybe they’re not the person you should… you know what forget it. You’re right. It’s none of my business. I shouldn’t have tried to meddle to begin with, Beatrice was right.”

“Finally!”

“Uh well it is my business if you’re meddling with my love life jesus christ Ben.”

“Are you kidding me? Do you not realize how hypocritical that is or are you just saying it anyways?”

“Look. I get that you’re worried that this could ruin me and Balth’s friendship but it’s worth it okay? And you’re seeing Beatrice, who was your friend, kind of, before all of this, so it’s not fair of you to try to fuck up my love life for the sake of the group.”

“Wait what?” 

“I mean… romantic life it hasn’t been going on that long I don’t wanna…” he cast Balthazar a sideways glance, nervously.

“That’s alright,” he smiled shyly. “Really though Ben, he’s right. Don’t worry about it, we wouldn’t be dating if we thought it wouldn’t work out yeah?”

“Wait you’re… what? What?” Ben pressed a hand to his head. Maybe he really had hit it on the ceiling. Or maybe he had just flown up to another planet entirely.

“Like we wouldn’t date if we thought it would just end you know? Me and Pedro? That is what you’re talking about right?”

Everyone stared at Ben expectantly, waiting for a response that never came. Instead came Meg’s laughter, solid and loud and almost musical, like something Balthazar would attempt to reproduce on his guitar but would never be able to get quite right.

“Oh this is just too good,” Meg said into the palm of her hand, “You were. And you were just-”

“What the hell is going on?” Pedro glared at her. “What, did you tell Ben about us? Is this why this is all happening?”

“Ben,” she said through laughter, “doesn’t know anything. He didn’t know you two were together. He was trying to set you up. With some pretty bad plots, I must say.”

“Excuse me?”

“You were?”

Pedro and Balthazar stared Ben down who put his hands up in defense. “I was just trying to help okay! I was making these plans see, these plots and I just thought I could you know… you did the same thing to me! I mean except you actually did something, sort of, I was just kind of... making a fuss about… nothing.” 

“That’s an understatement,” Meg snorted. 

“But you’re together yeah?” Ben grinned. “So my work here is done I guess.”

“Well I mean. You didn’t really do any work,” Balthazar muttered, shifting from where he had slowly come to stand closer to Pedro. “We were already-”

“Your work is done here Benedick. Now what was it that said about me earlier?”

“I uh. I think I said something about sausage or was it pepperoni…”

Bea grinned, scooting closer to him, wrapping her arms slowly around his neck. “Have I mentioned that you’re a ridiculous, beautiful idiot?”

“You know you have but I’m not good at understanding auditory lessons you see.” 

As she leaned towards him, Ben caught a glimpse of Balthazar and Pedro over his shoulder, one laughing, the other rolling his eyes, both staring at each other. In that instance, the world was spinning in the proper direction, he could feel it under his feet and in the cracks of his teeth. And for just one moment, as Beatrice pressed her lips against his, he swore it even dared to stand still.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry if there are typos I've spent so long on this and I wanna just get it out in the world finally and I'm So Tired. There were some italicized lines that ao3 took out of italics but I'm 2 tired 2 fix it and my computer is Not Cooperating so !! I hope u liked it tho I really tried lmao hmu at spookyteddylupin on tumblr to talk abt my kids dogberry, john, bea, peter, and the rest of the gang! I love you all thank you so much for reading!!!!!!!!


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